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From Our Editors

To call The Body Shop a mere skin and body care store is to miss half of what makes it special. Late founder Dame Anita Roddick was a pioneer for ethical business practices; upon opening her first store in Brighton, England, in 1976, she developed company values such as "Defend Human Rights" and "Protect The Planet." She somehow balanced principles and profit, partnering in global campaigns with UNICEF, Greenpeace, Amnesty International, and the United Nations, all while ultimately expanding her brand into 2,500 locations in over 60 international markets. After her death in 2007, then-British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said, ?She campaigned for green issues for many years before it became fashionable to do so and inspired millions to the cause by bringing sustainable products to a mass market. . . . She was an inspiration.?

Indeed, the Body Shop exhibits an eco-friendliness and social consciousness that's hard to come by in a company of its size. Its products have been fair-trade since 1987, and its Against Animal Testing movement led to an EU-wide ban of animal testing of cosmetics. The products are made from ingredients harvested from around the world: shea butter from Ghana goes into body scrubs and butters, and Indian artisans craft wooden massagers and tote bags that are screenprinted by hand. But all that isn't to say the company's production practices overshadow its final products. Skincare treatments such as the brand?s iconic body butters, facial products, and gift collections often appear in Allure, Marie Claire, Lucky, Seventeen and other national publications.

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It’s just after 6 p.m. on a sunny Wednesday in spring, and Lincoln Square buzzes with its usual after-work activity: parents pushing strollers, guitar-strapped students hoofing it to lessons at the Old Town School of Folk Music, leftover rush-hour traffic snaking its way through the bend at Lincoln Avenue. But this everyday scene is accompanied by a decidedly unexpected soundtrack: from an open door just south of the L tracks pours a hypnotic banjo drone, more at home at a backwoods séance than a bustling Chicago street.
The music emanates from the turntable at Laurie's Planet of Sound, where clerk Melissa Geils has just dropped the needle. The record is The Godward Way, a limited-edition release by Daniel Higgs, former lead vocalist of Baltimore post-hardcore legends Lungfish. You won’t find it just anywhere, and you definitely won’t hear it on the radio. For Geils and the rest of the staff, that's the point: when you come to Laurie's, you come to learn something new.
Open since 1997, Laurie’s is now an iconic part of the Lincoln Square landscape, a fixture on par with the Chicago Brauhaus or the Lombard Lamp. Geils has been around for 14 of those years, working with a small crew of longtime clerks to uphold the vision of owner John Laurie.
"[John] is a huge media junkie and strange and unusual films guy. That’s his other love. Probably, at this point in time, more so than music," Geils says.
This passion for oddities manifests itself in the DVDs that line the shelves along the shop's north wall. Carefully curated by the Laurie's team, the titles strike a careful balance between rare and familiar; compilations of local favorite Bozo the Clown share space with B-movie classics (I Was a Teenage Frankenstein), notoriously hard-to-find flops (Ishtar), and modern-day entries in the cult canon (FDR: American Badass!). The shop's music video section also houses its share of obscurities, from collections of Kraftwerk videos to showcases from now-shuttered New York clubs such as CBGB and Max's Kansas City.
If you think it sounds like the kind of place the guys from Mystery Science Theater 3000 might shop, the Laurie’s team would take it as a compliment; that show is also well-represented, as is its contemporary successor, RiffTrax. This diversity also makes for an eclectic customer base. You're just as likely to find nostalgic twentysomethings grabbing a cheap copy of Space Jam as you are to run into B-movie completionists seeking the final piece in their Tor Johnson collection.
Also making up the tight-knit community of regulars are crate diggers who comb through the shop's curiosity-filled vinyl collection. For Geils, the loyal clientele represents the new role the store has assumed in the age of digital media. “It’s way different than it was when I first started working," she says, glancing down at the store's cassette bin. "Now, the independent record store is for people who care about music enough to purchase it in object form. We've become kind of a community place."
Loyalty breeds familiarity, though, leaving Laurie's clerks perpetually on the hunt for new, even more impressive wares. In addition to working with distributors and buying used record collections, the staff often hits the streets, scouring antique stores for everything from vintage bowling patches to a taxidermied fish (which is currently available for the low, low price of $25). According to Geils, though, the clerks are still happiest when in the store, chatting about life-changing songs or pairing eager customers with a long-forgotten film.
"We've always had a really small staff of nice people," Geils says with a smile. "I think we’re kind of known as the nice record store, but that’s fine.”
PARTING PIECE
In addition to holding court behind the counter at Laurie's, Melissa Geils also dabbles as one of the tastemakers behind BLVD Records. Since opening in 2010, the label has amassed a tidy catalog of seven releases, ranging from the brawny noise rock of Fake Limbs to the moody goth atmospherics of Staring Problem. They're all available at Laurie's, along with an assortment of material from other notable Chicago labels including The Numero Group and HoZac Records. But when it comes to local perspective, the shop's most valuable find might be You Weren't There: A History of Chicago Punk, 1977-1984, Regressive Films’ 2007 documentary that charts the snotty bands and fearless clubs that helped put the city’s underground music scene on the national map.

Ellen Sternweiler’s Lincoln Square parenting store is shutting its doors. But this mother of three developmentally different kids isn’t done helping other families like hers.
Ellen Sternweiler wasn’t exactly thrilled about moving to Wilmette. “As a Chicagoan, a city person, moving to the suburbs was akin to moving to Mars,” she says. But the owner of the Lincoln Square eco-friendly parenting store Bellybum Boutique (4347 N. Lincoln Ave.), open since 2008, recently made the tough choice to relocate so that her three children—who each face developmental challenges—can access better education.
This big life change is also matched by a shift in her career path. In a few weeks the Bellybum storefront will close its doors so Ellen can put more focus onto the other half of her business: Sensory Kids, a shop that caters to children with developmental disabilities. From March 4 to March 26, Bellybum products from cloth diapers to baby carriers will be discounted 15%–90%, both in the store and online. “Sensory” toys available in store will also go on sale, but Ellen is saving her Sensory Kids online inventory for a big website redesign launching later in 2014.
Why the Switch?
Although she still feels passionately about green parenting, Ellen feels letting go of that side of the business will allow her to put more energy into an area where she can do the most good. “Sensory Kids is something I will never outgrow. That’s a timeless thing,” she says. “I know so many people whose lives are forever affected by this. It never goes away.”
She also hopes living in the suburbs—and nearer to the expressway—will make Sensory Kids more accessible to the people who need it. Although the old website will be accessible until the relaunch, Ellen will make it even easier for parents and kids to try out her sensory clothing, developmental toys, and therapeutic aids during in-home visits. “I’m finding that there’s quite a bit of people in the greater Chicagoland area that [have] heard of me. They need me, I’m a destination, but they can’t make it here. And so I’ve had a lot of requests to come to them.”
It Should Not Be This Hard
Sensory Kids was born out of frustration. Even after hours of research, Ellen could not locate the educational aide recommended by her child’s school. “I threw my hands up, like this is ridiculous,” she recalls. “It’s hard enough having children with extra needs. It should not be this hard to find what they need.” So she began stocking her own store with handpicked toys, aides, and educational resources for other parents like her.
The need turned out to be vast. She had customers driving in from all over the Midwest, and many more were placing orders online. Ellen wasn’t just a vendor—she was a valuable resource. “It’s a natural thing for people to look for my perspective because I work so closely with the therapists, doctors, and educators,” she says.
Building a Support System
Sensory Kids built off the inclusive vibe Ellen fostered at Bellybum. “Any kind of family unit is welcome in my store, and any decision that they made is theirs and I respect [it],” she says. “We’re here to provide information and support, not to judge.”
This philosophy extends to her youngest customers, too. “One of the most amazing things to watch is children who come in feel so comfortable being themselves, whoever that self is,” she says. “[They’re] able to walk into the store and pick out a weighted vest for themselves and not feel like it’s weird or different.” She also savors the reaction she gets from parents. “What they whisper to me when their child is out of earshot is, ‘I’ve never seen anything like this. This is what I’ve needed. Thank you.’”
Photo: Bellybum Boutique

Twice a month, Sarah Kraut and Carlos Chavarria get in their pickup truck and go hunting for vintage knickknacks, furniture, and art. But make no mistake—they aren’t pack rats. "We've been in enough places to see what can happen if you keep taking things home," says Sarah, referencing the abandoned houses and estate sales that yield much of the stock at Surplus of Options. The duo will scout more often during flea-market season, but otherwise, they wait for sellers—and their quirky treasures—to come to them.
The shop's only guiding motif is age—Carlos and Sarah try to display items from the ‘70s and earlier. However, Carlos also custom builds objects out of found materials, from tabletops made from slabs of zinc to lamps assembled from sheets of rust. As a result, Surplus of Options functions as both a shop and a gallery, what Sarah calls a "museum that you could buy stuff out of." On certain nights, it's even a performance venue for experimental jazz bands.
Though the shop's clientele typically consists of 50% browsers and 50% buyers, Carlos says that he doesn't begrudge the browsers at all. "I respect 'leave me alone and let me look around,' because you should do that with these sorts of spaces."
1. Carlos places this memory lamp ($60) as a holdover from the ‘50s or ‘60s, and likes to speculate what each adhered object represented to its creator. "This is something that people used to do a lot, find a bunch of objects, and they would just stick 'em on there…there's part of a steak, he must have really liked that steak!"
2. Ronald Cooper began carving folk art like this piece, titled The Devil’s Hot Tub ($150), in the latter half of his life, finding inspiration after a nearly fatal car accident.
3. Sarah calls this tiny apple sculpture ($25) "the most unloved item" in the shop. It's stayed on the shelf for longer than most of their wares, despite its inventive use of the fruit, which has been glazed over to prevent it from spoiling.
4. A Craigslist ad led Sarah and Carlos to this rocking bench ($175) and to an ongoing business relationship with its owner, who often invites them over to peruse his belongings. "We'll go to his house, and he'll have everything in his little kitchen that he wants to sell that day."
5. There's a mystery behind these collages ($90 each). Carlos relates the story of a man who donated a suitcase to the Salvation Army, then received a call from a hotel years later. Another guest had left the suitcase behind after a stay, and the staff had found the original owner's business card inside, along with a set of surreal pictures. "They are not signed, they're not dated, and they're really, really bizarre…but they're awesome."

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